Pakistan blast kills 1, injures 18

ISLAMABAD - A girl was killed and 18 others were wounded Saturday in a roadside bomb attack on a security vehicle in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta, officials said.

"Bombs were planted in an auto rickshaw parked along the roadside and [they were] detonated through remote control when a security vehicle, which was on routine patrol, passed by," Police Chief Imran Qureshi said Saturday.

At least three of those wounded were reported in critical condition.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but security sources said they suspected involvement by the secular Baluch militants, who have been fighting for "liberation" in the mineral-rich Baluchistan province, where the attack took place.

Hundreds of people have been killed in roadside bomb attacks frequently carried out by militants against security forces in a wave of insurgency since 2006, following the killing of veteran nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti in a military onslaught.

Security forces have long faced a fierce rebellion in Baluchistan, which covers 42 percent in Pakistan and borders Iran and Afghanistan.

However, the province -- rich in gold, copper and natural gas -- is the least-populous state in the country and has witnessed various spates of insurgency in the last 66 years.

Baluch militants claim the province was forcibly incarcerated by Pakistan during the partition of India in 1947.